Leadership Games & Workshops

Our Mission

We believe millennials make fantastic leaders. They’re collaborative, open, empathetic, and conscious in their decision making. Their aspirations as leaders are to empower and inspire others and to make a difference in the world1. As a learning & development provider, we believe in supporting these ambitions through graduate and leadership programmes which are as up-to-date, dynamic and creative as the participants themselves. Together, we can play a better game of leadership.

What

We offer a range of leadership programme modules which cultivate a collaborative and expansive mindset and teach practical skills. Take a look at our portfolio below, which includes the game-changing business simulation FreshBiz, our Stand Out From The Crowd presentation skills workshop, and our award-winning Building High Performing Teams leadership training.

how

We believe in experiential learning. Most of our leadership development workshops are game-based and all of them are highly interactive. That doesn’t mean there’s no time for theory and reflection; these aspects of the learning & development process play an important role, as do facilitated discussions and skilful goal-setting.

Who For

Our workshops are ideally suited to slot into leadership development programmes for graduates and emerging leaders, but work equally well for anyone wishing to embrace the millennial leadership values of collaboration, empowerment and innovation. Our clients include HSBC (Group Graduate Development Programme), Tesco (Options Programme), Qinetiq (Self Development Programme), M&S, Accor Hotels, Kingston University, amongst many others.

Portfolio

Our leadership development modules

These are the games and workshops we are so proud of. We don’t believe in one-size-fits-all, so we’ll always work with you to ensure a perfect fit with your objectives.

“We are so impressed that our activity was tailored according to our needs. It served that purpose brilliantly and was a big success within the team. The Bluehat professionals guided us through the process, explaining every step. All the recommendations from the Bluehat team were invaluable.” Accor Hotels

That’s a worrying number of potentially talented game-changers who are shying away from becoming leaders, because they lack confidence in a skill which is absolutely trainable. In other words, public speaking could be the biggest psychological threat to a leadership career.

The good news is: Anxiety is the emotion which lends itself best to being overcome through behavioural techniques, through doing and practising at the right level of stretch. For that reason our workshop is full of encouraging, practical exercises and opportunity for constructive feedback. Mining our backgrounds as professional actors and presenters we share our own toolkits, as well as demystifying the effects of nerves and looking at simple ways to structure a convincing narrative. Whether participants are natural extroverts or introverts, they will learn there is a confident and capable presenter in them all.

Vision and Values

A road map for success

Vision and Values

63 per cent of millennials want to be transformational leaders who inspire others with purpose and excitement.

This is fantastic news for the future. It also means that for the majority of young leaders, a traditional workshop on Vision & Values could be a bit like teaching grandmother to suck eggs. That’s why ours is packed with the opportunity for group members to lay their own path and dig deeper into what is important to them, discovering how they can align their values with their work, and communicate their ideals in an inspiring way to achieve the impact they aspire to.

We explore personal priorities through an energetic game and take a quiz on the vision statements of companies in the relevant sector. These statements serve as a catalyst for discussion on the significance of vision, and participants experience effective interactive techniques for coming to a shared set of vision and values, as well as ways to connect these to day-to-day working life.

An inspiring message can take many forms, and as always we believe in harnessing leaders’ full creativity. For the second half of the session, the group is tasked with capturing the themes of the workshop in a very special format: that of their very own, original stop-motion animation. Not only is this a memorable take-away to share and spark further conversations, but the challenge of creating the film as a team is an excellent platform for testing out the ways of working the group members identified as important to them in the earlier session- a link which will be made explicit in the closing Review and Reflection session.

Running Time : half day - full day | Number of Participants : 4 minimum

FreshBiz

Playing a better game of leadership

FreshBiz

If I win then someone else has to lose, right? And I’d better not help anyone else to win, because that would mean I’d be more likely to lose, wouldn’t I?

Although these old-school beliefs are on the way out, they still linger in many organisations and young workers risk adapting to them. The consequence is that their creativity is stifled and fantastic opportunities for collaboration, innovation and positive change are missed. Instead of allowing this to happen, why not welcome the new generation of employees with an intervention that challenges them to bring every ounce of their fresh thinking to the table?

FreshBiz is a transformational game which through its very mechanics presents an accurate and contemporary business reality, where working together and leveraging opportunities can lead to ‘quantum leaps’ towards the goal. Experiencing this ‘Win to the Winth Power’ in action will give young leaders confidence in their ideas around collaboration, creativity and leadership as they experiment with finding ways to win their game.

Freshbiz is a business simulation, but it’s not just about businesses, rather the mind-set of proactive creativity for turning ideas into reality. On the journey players will create movement, establish businesses, play action cards, gain initiatives, trade on the stock market, take out loans, pay expenses, and hopefully collect profits.

To be successful participants need to be conscious leaders: taking action, generating new ideas, engaging with and influencing other players, whilst zooming out to spot and create opportunities. By realising which leverageable resources they have, communicating that information and working smartly, delegates experience the full power of collaboration in an ever-changing environment.

FreshBiz is a leadership training tool which will help emerging leaders stay true to themselves, helping them and others win on so many levels.

You wouldn’t always think it, looking at those at the top, but communication is the number one skill which contributes to leadership success- especially as our expectations of leaders change.

Many young leaders are actually confident communicators, but they don’t always recognise their own blind spots. Like with most things, we have ingrained personal habits when it comes to communication. Those habits are likely to work wonders with certain people, but leave us hitting a brick wall with others. The right leadership training has the potential to spare leaders years of trial and error in this area by raising their self-awareness and boosting behavioural flexibility.

Active Leadership Challenge

Leadership skills put to the test

Active Leadership Challenge

The biggest obstacle for aspiring leaders is a lack of experience. Working with in-house L&D teams on their leadership programmes, we realised that there is a need for a space in which to put leadership skills to the test; where participants can go ahead and fail, learning from their mistakes in a safe and supportive environment. The Active Leadership Challenge was born out of this need, to serve as a platform for putting leadership training into practise. It works perfectly as the culmination of a leadership programme, not only because it brings all aspects of the learning journey to life, but also because it provides a shared and memorable experience for the group due to its theatricality and sense of celebration. Not that it’s an easy ride….

In essence a business simulation, the Active Leadership challenge consists of a series of dynamic tasks with shifting expectations and unexpected deadlines, recreating the uncertainties and changeability of working life. Set against the backdrop of the competitive perfume industry, the experience reveals who stays calm under pressure, who works with and through others, and who separates the important from the seemingly urgent. Participants will need to use their feedback skills to reflect on team members’ performance, and will consider their personal goals for their ongoing leadership development.

The question is: What business decisions will the young leaders make in the Ethical Dilemma? And who will produce the most creative advert and deliver the most convincing pitch? One thing is certain: Only one team will enjoy the sweet smell of success…

Comfort, Stretch, Panic

Bite-sized learning for personal growth

Comfort, Stretch, Panic

Millennials are extremely keen to learn and grow. Personal and leadership development are so important to them, that according to The 2016 Deloitte Millennial Survey their loyalty as employees is strongly correlated to learning opportunities at work.

It’s great that young leaders are driving learning & development in this way, but if you’re an employer investing in leadership training in order to develop and retain staff, you want to be sure that it’s a two-way street, and that the training is received with a pro-active attitude. For that reason, our CSP workshop is designed to boost the effect of any leadership training programme by motivating participants to take ownership of their personal growth, and teaching them how to turn even everyday challenges into the learning opportunities they value so much.

CSP is an accessible and experiential coaching tool which is brought to life through our floor mat, on which the group have the chance to map out their personal journeys through their “Comfort”, “Stretch”, and “Panic” zones.

As well as valuing their own development, millennials are committed to becoming inclusive leaders who bring out the best in others. To help them make this a reality, we teach them how to use the lessons from the CSP model to set appropriate challenges for others and start to become coaches in their own right.

Building High Performing Teams

Bringing out the best in people

Building High Performing Teams

Understanding the natural process of team development and knowing how to nurture and sustain a high performing team are skills which define the success of a leader throughout their career, allowing them to have a transformational effect on those they work with.

Getting teams right is an art and as with any art, practice makes perfect. We bring our practice and teambuilding expertise to you in this unique and balanced learning & development experience, giving your young leaders the tools they need to build and lead high performance teamwork.

Through team exercises, group discussion, personal reflection and sharing best practice we explore and examine the nature of teamwork using the framework of the Forming Storming Norming Performing model of team development. We also identify the behaviours and processes for developing and motivating high performing teams to help leaders flex their leadership style appropriately.

Once participants have got a grasp of the theory, they get the chance to experiment with what they’ve learnt within the award-winning game Hells Bells. This immersive activity brings the theory of team development to life; highlighting the need for collaboration and celebrating the power of teamwork. During our Review and Reflection session we draw out insights and learning outcomes to help delegates bring out the best in themselves as leaders, as well as in those around them.

This workshop received the Highly Commended accolade at the latest EVCOM Awards. Talk to us to find out why our clients think this is such a winning recipe!

More Leadership Games

Powerful Development Tools

More Leadership Games

“Passive connection won’t play with millennials,” say Bruce Butterfield and Susan Fox of the Center for Associative Leadership. This generation has a taste for games, and as learners they need a level of interactivity which was previously unheard of. Are they simply refusing to grow up? On the contrary; they’re reinventing concepts of work and play and the ways in which these areas intertwine to produce innovative results. If you’re looking to engage this wave of aspiring leaders, playing purposeful games is THE way to go.

Which games to play and why?

Thanks to fifteen years of teambuilding experience on the part of our “mothership” Bluehat, we know what kind of activities chime with the learning needs of developing leaders, and as a learning & development team we are well-versed in embedding these effectively into workshops to suit specific objectives.

If you’ve checked out our section on the game FreshBiz, you’ll know that we have a great solution there for bringing to life collaboration, pro-activity and creative thinking. Another of our favourites has similar outcomes, but takes place on a much larger physical scale: the award-winning Hells Bells. Totally immersive, imaginative and with a twist of panto-like charm, this game has something to please and (seriously) challenge everyone.

We also specialise in inspiring ways of bringing leadership vision and values to life, either through stop-motion animation in our game Animate, larger-than-life canvases in Big Picture, or on the front page of a future-focused newspaper in Making The News.

If you would like us to set the scene for you in more detail, just get in touch!

It goes without saying (but we will anyway) that all our team members are experienced in delivering training in the corporate world. They also have in common a passion for behaviour change, a great sense of humour and a creative, curious mind.

Sean Clarke

L&D Director

Bluehat’s L&D pioneer, Master Practitioner of Neuro Linguistic Programming, former actor and musician, and keep-fit fanatic. If we were a 90’s girl band, Sean would be the sporty one (but Welsh, and male, o

Elisa Criado

Lead Facilitator

Learning & Development via Clinical Psychology, acting, and journalism. Sharing stories, making change! Elisa has an English tongue, a Dutch brain, Spanish blood, and her heart belongs to a German.

Sharon Torpey

Executive Consultant

Master Accredited Coach, assessor and supervisor for the Association for Coaching, expert in Neuro Linguistic Programming and Transactional Analysis, MSc in Organisational Consulting, AND an avid runner… small wonder that Sharon is our guiding light!

Helen Millar

Associate Facilitator

Emma Deegan

Associate Facilitator

Facilitating a FreshBiz workshop and performing in a West End show- it’s all in a day’s work for Emma. A talented actress, mindful life hacker, and one of the nicest Irishwomen you’ll ever meet.

Luke Cunliffe

Associate Facilitator

Emotional intelligence specialist, trainer, executive coach, motivational speaker. Oh, and Luke enjoys a bit of light running- he’s run over 50 marathons and extreme races from the jungle to the Himalayas!

Ooh, how we love to talk!

Get in touch with us on 020 3551 2050 or send us over an email to enq@bluehatgroup.co.uk and we’ll be in touch as soon as possible!